Flukes in food

[Everett]

Can flukes attach themselves to cbw's or other types of live foods that maybe introduced into the aquarium? In the past 3 years in the hobby I have used flake, frozen, freeze dried, and live foods to feed discus, other cichlids and the cleanup crews. My current observation comes after introducing live foods into a new setup. Within hours of the first feeding, flashing against objects has begun to occur. Prior to, only flakes and frozen were being fed, and the symptoms were not seen. I admit this time i violated a qt proceedure but the inhabitants are not really of value. If they can hitch-hike, it would explain why my discus needed to be treated every 4 mo., I think i'm going to have to goto a commercial supplier rather than the lfs.

Your thoughts and experiences would be of much value.

[Ardan]

I believe it depends on the source of the cbw.

If the source is dirty, as from a trout pond or goldfish pond, then I believe they can carry or carry with them many parasites.

I base this on a personal past experience and microscope use. The cbw were from a goldfish pond. There were fish louse in the worm batch, my fish became very sick all in different tanks. Flukes and capillaria, and hexamita were observed under the microscope.
Some of these may have been opportunistic organisms that the fish had before the disease exploded, but something in the live food allowed those organisms to prosper and cause the fish to become very ill.

Using cbw from www.aquaticfoods.com , I have never had a problem.

hth